karna and karma yoga

Among the many interesting episodes in mahabharata war is an episode which takes place just before karna's death. Arjuna, prodded on by Krishna, shoots at karna when he is trying to lift his chariot. Karna though injured does not die. In fact Arjuna is not able to take his life as all the charity that karna had done creates a protective shield around him. Once again Krishna comes to the rescue, goes to karna and asks him to give away all the merit he has accumulated to krishna as charity ehich Karna does unhesistatingly. Krishna then blesses him with mukti and Arjuna is now able to kill Karna. While all this may seem to be quite heartless on the part of Krishna, the teaching ingrained within it is that of the entire Bhagavad Gita in a nutshell. It tells us that for ultimate liberation our so called 'good' karma form as much a bondage as our 'bad' karma. The only way to break the shackles is to give away the merit of all our actions to the Lord i.e. dedicate the results of our actions-good or bad as we may deem it-to the Lord and perform actions as his instrument alone.This essence of karma yoga was beautifully shown during this episode in our great epic-Mahabharata